We can now turn to a discussion of the Mormon move to
the Far West, the story of the Mormon Trail. From its beginning in 1846,
to the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869, the Mormon
Pioneer National Historic Trail, stretching from Nauvoo, Illinois, to
what is now Salt Lake City, Utah, has captivated the fancy of both
Mormons and non-Mormons, and is one of the most written-about trails in
all history. Hundreds of journals were kept during the twenty-two years
the Mormons used the trail. Many books and articles and hundreds of
stories have been written about it, as well. (For further reading see
the bibliography at the end of this study.)

As noted in the introduction, westering Mormons were
very much a part of a general move to the west that happened in the 19th
century. In spite of all the unique aspects of their move to the west,
as detailed in this study, the Mormons were still much like the
Oregonians and Californians.

The great trek, although the most important segment,
was only part of the story of the Mormon westward movement. During the
thirty-seven years (1831-1868) of Mormon immigration to various church
headquarters in Ohio, Missouri, Illinois, and Utah, from their removal
from New York to Ohio in 1831, through the arrival of the first European
converts in New York City in 1840, to the "wedding of the rails" in
1869, Mormons developed or used at least twenty-two points of departure,
or staging grounds and many other trails.

Several other trails directly related to the MPNHT
will be mentioned briefly in this studyThe New York Saints Trail,
The Zion's Camp Trail, The Nebraska City Cutoff Trail, and the
Overland-Bridger Pass Trail. Other trails used by immigrating Mormons,
such as the Mississippi Saints Trail, the Santa Fe Trail, the Mormon
Grove Trail, the Dragoon Trail, The Golden Road, and The Ox-Bow will not
be treated in this study. In one way or another, however, all westering
Mormons eventually intersected the famous MPNHT of 1846-1847 and
followed it to their Zion. (However, this historic resource study is
restricted largely to the Nauvoo to Salt Lake City route during the
years 1846-1868.) [1]

POINTS OF DEPARTURE AND TIME
PERIODS

The Mormons used many points of departure during
their emigration period. Only the first two groups of European emigrants
in 1840 sailed to New York City; thereafter for fifteen years, all
emigrants sailed to New Orleans and then traveled up the Mississippi
River to various other points of departure. Until 1845 they went
straight to Nauvoo, Illinois, where The Exodus of 1846 commenced.
Afterwards many other jumping-off places to the Far West were
developed:

Winter Quarters (Florence, now North Omaha),
Nebraska, 1847-1848

Council Bluffs, Iowa, 1847-1852

St. Louis, Missouri, 1852

Keokuk, Iowa, 1853

Westport, Missouri, 1854

Mormon Grove, Kansas, 1855-1856

Iowa City, Iowa, 1856-1857

Florence, Nebraska, 1856-1863

St. Joseph, Missouri, 1859

Genoa, Nebraska, 1859

Wyoming, Nebraska, 1864-1866

The Union Pacific Railroad began moving west from
Omaha on July 10, 1865. Thereafter, Mormons took trains from Omaha to
three different railheads.

North Platte, Nebraska, 1867

Laramie City, Wyoming, 1868

Benton, Wyoming, 1868

While the trans-Missouri section of the MPNHT was
used extensively by the Mormons between 1847 through 1868, the Iowa
segment of the trail was used much less. The Iowa portion was used by
the pioneers in 1846, by a few companies from Keokuk in 1853, and by
seven handcart companies in 1855-1857. Furthermore, the segment of the
original pioneer trail of 1846 between Drakesville, Davis County, and
Garden Grove, Decatur County, may have been used but once or twice,
because it was too far south and too close to Missouri, where the
Mormons had been persecuted in the 1830s. At Drakesville, shorter
variants more to the north originated. The handcarters followed the 1846
trail in Iowa only from what is now Lewis, in Cass County.

Four time periods will be treated in this study:

Between 1846-1860, the Mormons generally went
west in wagon trains organized at different points of
departure.

Between 1855-1860, they experimented with
handcarts.

Thereafter, during the years 1861-1866, the
Mormons switched to large ox-team church trains sent out from Salt Lake
City to haul emigrants and freight west.

And, finally, during 1867-1868, they came by
"rail and trail."

After 1869, Mormons who came west by trail were
dubbed "Pullman Pioneers." [2] Only those
Mormons, for example, with ancestors who came to Utah before 1869 can
become members of the Sons of Utah Pioneers or the Daughters of Utah
Pioneers.

WAGONS, DRAFT ANIMALS, SPEED OF
TRAVEL

The Saints used all kinds of wagons and carriages,
but mostly they used ordinary reinforced farm wagons, which were about
ten feet long, arched over by cloth or waterproof canvas that could be
closed at each endalmost never the huge, lumbering Conestoga
wagons beloved by Hollywood. Because the wagons had to cross rivers, the
bottoms were usually caulked or covered with canvas so they would float.
While the ubiquitous white tops, or covered wagons, of the era may not
have been ideal for travel (they were uncomfortable to ride in, broke
down, were slow and cumbersome), they were the most efficient means of
hauling goods. Families en route could live in, on, alongside, and under
these animal-drawn mobile homes, and at the end of the trail, they could
become temporary homes until real houses could be erected.

The pioneers used a variety of draft animals,
especially horses, mules, and oxen. They often preferred the latter when
they were available, for oxen had great strength and patience and were
easy to keep; they did not balk at mud or quicksand, they required no
expensive and complicated harness, and Indians did not care to eat them,
so seldom stole them. (They could, however, be eaten by the pioneers in
an emergency.) The science of "oxteamology" consisted of little more
than walking along the left side of the lead oxen with a whip, prod, or
goad, urging them on and guiding them, and was considerably simpler than
handling the reins of horses or mules. With gentle oxen, widows with
children could and did (with a little help, especially during the
morning yoking up) transport themselves and their possessions
successfully all the way to the valley of the Great Salt Lake.

Along the trail, under normal conditions, the Mormons
averaged 2 miles an hour, the usual speed of an ox pulling a heavy wagon
all day long. [3]

COMMUNICATION

To keep the emigrant companies together, or at least
to keep in touch with the various leaders, mounted couriers were
appointed to ride back and forth, and bells, bugles and different
colored signal flags were used to communicate messages and call meetings
throughout the entire migration period. Beyond the Missouri River, the
pioneers occasionally wrote messages on animal skulls and scapula. (See
Appendix D, Illustration 1.) An example of this sort of "bone mail" read
"Pioneers double teamed. 8 June 1847. Camp all well. Hail storm last
night, fine morning. T[homas] Bullock, no accident." [4] Sometimes they wrote on rocks and boards, tied
notes to trees, or left letters enclosed between two pieces of wood. A
trail "post office" was sometimes made by setting up a pole by the side
of the trail, drilling a hole in it for a letter then plugging the hole.
[5] After October 24, 1861, when the Overland
Telegraph wires were joined in Salt Lake City, the Mormons also used the
telegraph, especially with church headquarters in Salt Lake City.

Mormons also liked to leave their names behind, a
common practice of emigrants in trail days, and many can be found along
the trail today in such places as Avenue of Rocks, Independence Rock,
Devil's Gate in Wyoming, and in Cache Cave in Utah. [6]

PROBLEMS OF ILLNESS, STRESS, PRIVACY, AND
TRAVELING

Injury, sickness, and death were commonplace.
Emigrants suffered cuts; broken bones; gun wounds; burns; scaldings;
animal, insect, and snake bites; stampedes; overturned wagons; shifting
freight; drownings; quicksand; black scurvy; black canker (probably
diphtheria); cholera; typhoid fever; ague; quick consumption
(tuberculosis); headaches; piles; mumps; asthma; inflammation of the
bowels; scrofula; erysipelas; diarrhea; small pox; itch; and infections
of all kinds, including puerperal fever, which can follow childbirth. In
reference to the latter, the journals of some of the midwives make
melancholy reading. [7] Although oxen moved
very slowly, there was no quick way of stopping them. Therefore, many
women, because their long skirts got caught, were injured when dragged
under animals or wagon wheels. Children often fell under the animals or
wagons. Emigrants were also stepped on, gored, and kicked by
animals.

Also, because emigrant trains moved so slowly,
emigrants, especially children, occasionally got lost. This was the
result of straggling, gathering flowers or berries, hunting, attempting
short cuts, or trying to visit landmarks that were farther away than
they appeared because of the clarity of the high plains' atmosphere.
Most found their way back (some were helped by Indians), but some never
were seen again in spite of searches, rifle shots, and signal fires. [8]

Some emigrants suffered from being physically or
emotionally impaired. There were persons with various kinds of physical
disabilities, like blindness, inability to speak, and absence of limbs.
Emotional disturbances ranged from the mild to the bizarre. The number
of physically and emotionally disabled Mormon emigrants who attempted to
cross the plains or whose guardians attempted to take them to Zion is
surprising. Mormon emigrant companies probably started out with a higher
percentage of disabled people, because of their belief in the "power of
the priesthood" and in miracle healing. It was common practice among
Mormon emigrants to request church leaders to give blessings to the sick
and the injured, and sometimes people were healed. Many were not.

Emigrants were also plagued by mosquitoes, chiggers,
ticks, lice, gnats, bed bugs, fleas, flies, and other vermin. To these
trials must be added the weaknesses of human beings under stress, which
sometimes led to abusive language, fighting, quarreling, divorce,
stealing, selfishness, sponging, excessive harshness, and alcohol abuse.
[9]

Weather was also an important cause of discomfort and
death. Emigrants suffered from exposure to heat, mud, wind, rain, cold,
snow, and blizzards. Some were hurt and even killed by lightning, and
children were occasionally hurt by whirlwinds; one little boy was
dropped in the Platte River by one. [10]

Funerals and burials were often hurried affairs, as
little time could be spared while en route. Shallow graves were dug,
unless the ground was frozen, in which case, no grave could be dug. (In
cold but not yet freezing weather, the preferred place to dig a grave
was the site of the previous night's campfire.) A few were buried in
coffins, many others only in blankets, hollowed out logs, or between
pieces of bark. Children were often buried in containers like bread
boxes and tea canisters. Some graves were marked, but more often
everything was done to obliterate all traces of the grave, to discourage
wild animals (and sometimes Indians) from digging up the corpse.

The problem of privacy for the purposes of
elimination was solved by following the common rule: men to one side,
women to the other. If the women went in a group, several sisters
standing with skirts spread wide could provide a privacy screen for each
other. Most wagons also had chamber pots.

Discipline was set and maintained by church leaders
and, as previously noted, was based on the belief that Mormons were
modern day saints, led by living prophets, carrying out God's will.
Thus, discipline was generally preserved on the trail. Mormons, like
most other westering Americans, usually had some basic trail rules and
constitutions, but they were seldom elaborated or written down.
Generally Mormon companies felt they were led by the Lord, or at least
by His designates, and that they were to follow orders and rules without
question. A member of the Mormon ruling priesthood was always in charge
of the companies, usually assisted by one or two counselors. Mormons
were supposed to be (Web Edition Note: Text missing from published
edition)

Such rule by the priesthood usually sufficed. When
serious troubles arose, company councils were called and a rough and
ready trail-side justice was meted out. Those in the wrong were expected
to apologize, make amends, and repent. Men were occasionally flogged.
(For improper sex matters emasculation was hinted at, although there is
no record it was ever carried out.) Men and women could also be expelled
from the companya serious punishment on, or beyond, the frontier.
[12]

The more experience the Mormons gained in westering,
the less important rigid rules and regulations became, but sometimes
constitutions were written down. A typical one of the period was drafted
by a company of English Saints at West Port, Missouri, in 1854. It
reads:

Camp Ground, State of Missouri, 14 July 1854

At Council Meeting this evening Elder Empey
presiding, it was resolved:

That Bro. Robert Campbell be president of this
company.

That Bro. Richard Cook be his first counselor and
Bro. Woodard be his second counselor.

Most Mormon companies, with the exception of the
pioneer company of 1847, had more women (and children) than most
non-Mormon companies. This was because most Mormons did not go west for
furs, gold, adventure, or a new identity, but seeking religious freedom;
they usually traveled as families and often had single women converts
along. [15] And because man of these women,
like Bathsheba Smith, Sarah Leavitt, Sarah Alexander, Caroline Crosby,
Mary Field Garner, Eliza R. Snow (see Appendix D, Illustration 2 and
Appendix C, Biographical Sketch 1), Patty Bartlett Sessions (see
Appendix D, Illustration 3 and Appendix C, Biographical Sketch 2), Jane
Rio Pearce, and Patience Archer wrote trail accounts, we know much of
their trail life. [16] Typically, trail life
was harder on them than on the men. The lack of privacy in bathing,
elimination, and sleeping was especially difficult for Mormon women, as
was their task of gathering bison dung, euphemistically termed bois
de vache, meadow muffins, or chips for fuel. There were several
trail songs about this work. The following is typical:

There's a pretty little girl in the outfit ahead
Whoa Haw Buck and Jerry Boy
I wish she were by my side instead
Whoa Haw Buck and Jerry Boy
Look at her now with a pout on her lips
As daintily with her fingertips
She picks for the fire some buffalo chips
Whoa Haw Buck and Jerry Boy.

Women also were responsible for most of the care of
infants and children, as well as the fuel gathering, cooking, churning,
sewing, laundering, and nursing. (Many women found it difficult at first
to cook in the higher altitudes, where water boils at a lower
temperaturesometimes beans and rice could cook for hours and never
get soft.)

Many women were pregnant when they left for the west
and others became pregnant en route. Both realities added to the
difficulties of immigrating women. Probably a tenth of all Mormon
emigrants died. The author's study of Mormon Trail accounts indicates
that most were women and children. [17]

Women were also greatly hampered and disadvantaged by
their clothing. Westering males dressed for the conditions: heavy boots,
strong trousers, shirts, jackets, coats and broad-brimmed hats to
protect the face and eyes. Tragically the same cannot be said for
westering females. While modesty is almost universally considered a
great virtue, it, like everything else except good will, can be
overdone. The female attire of trail days, decreed by modesty and
fashion, got filthy, soaked up water (even from dew), and often caused
accidents. Long skirts could get caught in many ways, drawing females
under animals and moving wagons.

Even after the super modest and "trail safe" bloomers
(of Amelia Bloomer) came into existence in 1852, few Mormon females
cared or dared to wear them, for they were considered a costume espoused
by feminists as a dress for liberated women and signaled radical sexual
and political messages that were denounced at the time. Furthermore, the
Bible (Deuteronomy 22:5) decreed, "The woman shall not wear that which
pertaineth unto a man...all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy
God." Women also kept their long skirts, petticoats, ribbons, bows, and
white aprons to maintain their sexual distinction from men and their
"superiority" over Indian women, and to preserve their femininity and
domesticity.

Balancing out the grim realities of trail life are
female trail accounts of the "romance," beauty of the landscape, the
adventure of it all. Activities included dancing, singing, games,
recitations, feasts, parties, socializing, tea parties, courting, and
weddings. Westering women, including Mormons, enjoyed thinking up
trail-related names for their infants born en route, such as Platte,
Lucile Platte, Humboldt, Nevada, Laborious, Echo, Handcart, Blue River,
La Bonte, and Liberty. Sometimes at night, camp women would place their
scanty domestic belongings around their campfire to approximate their
"parlors" back home. They also arranged the interiors of their covered
wagons to be as homelike as possible. They hung mirrors, pictures, and
lamps, spread carpets, and placed other belongings to this end. In fact
pioneer women generally did everything they could to preserve their
traditional role and image and the niceties of civilization,
domesticity, and a semblance of home while westering. [18]

The realities of trail travel, however, greatly
altered some aspects of family life. While the nineteenth century
clearly distinguished between male and female roles, defining women as
agents of civilization and keepers of morals, the differences between
male and female work were blurred by the trail experience. Women were
often called upon to take over men's duties and responsibilities.
(Sometimes men even had to do women's work.) Throughout the
Mormon migrations, every possible type of arrangement of family groups
formed, including the unique Mormon contribution to the westward
movementpolygamy. (See also below, page 44.)

Since polygamy had been practiced at Nauvoo, it
existed on the trail. At the beginning of the exodus in 1846, some men
took all their wives and children with them, some returned later for the
balance of their families. Some women and their children joined their
husbands later on the Missouri River, or in Utah. Some never did go
west. Some men married plural wives en route; some missionaries returned
from Europe with additional wives.

18 Stanley B. Kimball,
"Women, Children, and Family Life on Pioneer Trails," Paper presented
before the National Convention of the Daughters of Utah Pioneers, Salt
Lake City, Utah, October 1980.

There were also single Mormon emigrants, bachelors,
maidens, widows, widowers, the divorced and the orphaned. The net of
faith brought in all kinds. As far as possible singles were fitted into
the emigrant companies and completely accepted. Often such single
pioneers were hired hands taken along as teamsters, drivers, cattle
tenders, and handymen. Single females were sometimes hired to assist
with the children and to aid older family members. [19] Despite the big differences between Mormon
and non-Mormon trail emigrants, it appears that in general, the lives of
Mormon female emigrants were much the same as those of most women on the
Oregon and California trails. [20]

LITTLE EMIGRANTS, CHILDREN

Most Mormon immigrating companies included children
and infants, and child care was one of the greatest responsibilities and
concerns, especially to the mothers. [21]
Proper child care was greatly complicated by the constant traveling.

Older children usually had assignments, such as
watching the younger ones, driving, herding, gathering fuel, and helping
their mothers. Little children, however, tended to wander off, get lost,
play too close to the draft animals and wagons, or step on cacti. Little
girls wore the same inappropriate clothing as their mothers did.

A favorite, and dangerous, pastime of young boys was
hanging on tent poles or extra axles that were stored under the wagons.
An even more dangerous pastime of boys was standing on the wagon tongue
and balancing themselves by placing their hands on the backs of the
oxen.

Children were attracted to fire and boiling water.
They were also susceptible to many illnesses and often there was little
suitable food for infants. Some mothers tried to keep their children by
their sides, or safely in the wagons. Some companies attempted to
protect their children by keeping them all together in one group,
supervised by one or more adults. Every morning the group would be
marched ahead of the main company, and herded like sheep all day long.
This was hard on the children and on their parents, but it did prevent
many accidents.

Children made pets of cats, birds, prairie dogs,
eagles, chickens, and lambs. Some even tried to tame buffalo calves. And
all children, it seems, took a great liking to the family oxen, giving
them pet names like Rouser, Brindle, Old Smut, Bill, Tom and Jerry, and
Buck and Bright. There were few dogs on the trails. Cats were quiet and
good mousers, but barking dogs could cause stampedes, attract Indians,
or scare game.

Children played draughts or checkers, cards,
hide-and-seek, tag, and ball. Some had toys like iron lions or dolls.
Boys had pocket knives. They played with crickets and eagerly looked for
anthills, for sometimes they could find Indian beads therethe ants
picked them up like small pebbles. Despite all the hardships, most
children who made the journey revelled in it the rest of their
lives.

INDIAN RELATIONS

Along the MPNHT and throughout their immigrating
period, Mormons met with many different groups and tribes of Indians,
such as the Potawatomi, Omaha, Oto, Pawnee, Sioux, Snake (or properly,
Shoshoni), Ute, and Paiute, but seldom experienced difficulties. This
was in part because of the Book of Mormon, which gave Mormons their
unique and positive attitude towards Indians. In short, Mormons treated
Indians better than other whites treated them. According to the Book of
Mormon, many American Indians are descended from several groups of
people in pre-Columbian America, who had somehow found their way from
the Old World Holy Land to the New, and who had subsequently rejected
God and fallen under a curse. This curse was to be removed eventually
through the Indians' acceptance of true ChristianityMormonism.
Mormons felt it was their obligation to help the Indians, not only to
"civilize" them, but also to convert them and to help them become a
"fair and delightsome people." [22] Indians
tended to leave immigrating Mormons alone for other reasons as well: the
size and preparedness of most Mormon companies, the fact that almost all
Mormons merely passed through Indian lands and did not settle on them,
were usually considerate in their consumption of game, grass, and wood,
and gave Indians presents of salt, tobacco, and food.

Prior to their exodus west, the Mormons had had no
sustained relations with Indians. (This was in part because between 1825
and 1846, the U.S. government practiced an Indian Removal program for
the purpose of driving all eastern Indians west of the Mississippi.

The Sauk and Fox, for example, had been driven from
Illinois by the cruel Black Hawk "War" of 1832.) There had been chance
encounters here and there. In the early 1830s, Mormon missionaries had
tried unsuccessfully to proselytize some Wyandot in Ohio and some
Shawnee and Delaware, west of the Missouri River, near Independence,
Missouri. In 1841, Chief Keokuk accompanied by Kiskukosh, Appenoose, and
about 100 other chiefs and braves of the Sauk and Fox, crossed the
Mississippi from Iowa (whence they had been driven in 1832) and visited
Nauvoo. [23]

During the Nauvoo period of Mormon history
(1839-1846), several extremely important precedents were established
regarding the relations between Mormons and Indians. Some Indians were
given the Mormon priesthood, there was some intermarriage, and a few
Indians had been permitted to go through the Nauvoo temple and take part
in those sacred and secret ordinances. In no other way could the
potential equality of red men with white men have been so conclusively
demonstrated to Mormons and to their Indian friends. [24]

Because of their unique view of Indians, Mormons
generally treated them more fairly than other whites and throughout
their migrating period, Mormons had little trouble with Indians. There
are only several authenticated cases of kidnappings and killings. [25] (There were, however, a good many Indian
attempts along the trail to buy or trade for Mormon wives. To the
author's knowledge, no such arrangements were ever consummated, although
up to twenty horses were sometimes offered, especially for redheads with
ringlets!) [26] Indians did, however, steal
Mormon livestock, especially horses, whenever possible.

Contemporary Mormon Trail accounts reveal none of the
horror most white Americans held concerning the captivity of white women
by red men. On the contrary, Mormon journals mention Indians as being
stately, helpful, nice, clean, handsome, stylish, and living in
primitive grandeur. Mormons recorded that Indians provided food, rides
on horses, guide services, entertainment, such as horse races and bow
and arrow demonstrations, and occasional succor to lost pioneers. Some
handcarters recorded that mounted Indians sometimes threw a rope on a
handcart and helped pull it through rough terrain. [27] When the Mormons settled in the Great Basin,
however, and thereby pre-empted Indian lands, they experienced the same
type of Indian troubles as non-Mormon settlers. There were intermittent
conflicts for about twenty yearsfrom some horse stealing in 1849
through the Black Hawk War of the 1860s.

BLACKS ON THE TRAIL

There were very few Blacks connected with the early
Mormon Church and fewer still on the emigrant trails. There were, for
example, only three Blacks in the pioneer company of 1847Green
Flake, Hark Lay, and Oscar Crosby. In the much bigger group of 1848,
twenty-four more Blacks crossed the plains. Thereafter the records
indicate a scattering of Black "servants" going west during the 1850s.
Almost all of the servants mentioned in the sources were slaves of white
southern converts, who saw no compelling reason for freeing their slaves
just because they had become Mormons. Fortunately, most Blacks were
later freed in Utah. On the trail, most of these slaves served as
teamsters, herders, or cooks. [28]

FOREIGN MORMON EMIGRANTS

Mormon missionaries first reached Europe in 1837, and
from England, missionaries spread to the continent. There were,
therefore, many Mormon emigrants from, not only England, Ireland,
Scotland, and Wales, but also from Denmark, Norway, Iceland, France,
Italy, and Germany. Many of these emigrants were at a disadvantage in
not knowing English in addition to not being accustomed to life on and
beyond the American frontier. Mormon emigration officials tried to
reduce this disadvantage through the previously mentioned Perpetual
Emigration Fund, by organizing the foreign emigrants in Europe so that
they sailed and traveled together all the way to their new Zion, and by
always putting leaders in charge who knew the requisite languages. The
sources indicate the system worked well. [29]

NON-MORMONS ON THE TRAIL

The Mormons, of course, met many traders, freighters,
trappers and mountain men at their various points of departure and along
the Mormon Trail. Additionally they encountered other westering
Americans, the military, including discharged soldiers and even
deserters and draft-dodgers from both north and south (during the Civil
War, sometimes Mormon trains were even stopped and searched for such
men), mail carriers, 49ers, Overland Telegraph workers, government roads
workers, and Union Pacific Railroad workers.

During the Civil War, some of the Mormon trains were
stopped, usually near Fort Bridger, and all native born males eighteen
years or older had to take an oath of allegiance to the United States,
while all male aliens eighteen years or older had to swear to act in
strict neutrality. [30]

MORMON INTEREST IN THE FAR WEST TO
1846

We can now turn to a discussion of just when the
Mormons decided to settle in the Rocky Mountain area. The usual place to
start the story of the Mormons and the Far West is with a statement made
August 6, 1842, allegedly by Joseph Smith, to the effect that the Saints
would continue to suffer much affliction and would be driven to the
Rocky Mountains. In July 1843, Smith sent Jonathan Durham to investigate
a route across Iowa from Nauvoo, Illinois, to the Missouri River. By
February 1844, Smith had also suggested an exploring party be sent to
investigate locations for possible settlement in California or Oregon.
In March 1844, he sent a petition to Congress requesting authorization
to raise 100,000 armed volunteers to protect Mormons who might immigrate
to Oregon. [31] Nothing came of the projected
exploring party or the petition. Among other things, Smith began
campaigning for the presidency of the United States, Congress refused to
receive the petition, and Smith was murdered the following June by an
anti-Mormon mob in Carthage, Illinois.

One important event, however, did come from the
abortive petition. Congressman Stephen A. Douglas from Illinois sent
Smith a map of Oregon, a copy of John C. Fremont's 1843 map (see
Appendix A, Map 3) and a report on the exploration of the country lying
between the Missouri River and the Rocky Mountains.

The death of Smith ended further discussion of going
west for the rest of that year and the church as a whole dedicated
itself to effecting the plans of its martyred prophetcompleting
the temple, building a better Nauvoo, and expanding the proselytizing
program.

It appears that by January 1845, Brigham Young (see
Appendix D, Illustration 4 and Appendix C Biographical Sketch 3),
Joseph's de facto, if not de jure, successor and other
Mormon leaders simultaneously carried on two mutually exclusive
programs: (1) to build up Nauvoo, and (2) to prepare to leave. [32] Until October 1845, however, the second
program was not generally known. That Young indeed was preparing his
followers for such a move is manifested by the fact that on October 30,
1844, the Nauvoo Neighbor, a Mormon newspaper, printed a
selection from Washington Irving's Astoria entitled "The Climate
of the Rocky Mountains," and that throughout 1845, the same paper
published many other articles on Oregon, the Indians, and especially
extracts from Fremont's Reports about the Oregon Trail, the Bear
River area, and the Valley of the Great Salt Lake. Also published were
portions of Lansford W. Hastings' The Emigrants' Guide to Oregon and
California, which had just appeared in 1845. Furthermore, in
1845, the New York Messenger, another Mormon publication, printed
almost the entirety of Hastings' book. [33]
Young even revived Smith's proposal about sending out a party to search
for locations in the west, but nothing came of it.

How long Young intended to carry on both programs is
not known, for his hand was forced that fall. In September of 1845,
anti-Mormons, convinced that the Mormons were not going to leave
Illinois, began a program of harassment. More than 200 Mormon homes and
farm buildings located outside Nauvoo were burned that fall and the
anti-Mormon convention headquartered in Carthage decreed that the
Mormons must quit Illinois the following spring. Therefore a western
exploring party was organized and the exodus was officially announced
and scheduled for the spring of 1846. [34]
Mormon historical records show that during December 1845 Mormon leaders
studied the works of Fremont, Hastings, and other travelers of the Far
West. [35] (See section entitled Western
Travel Accounts Consulted by the Mormons, page 29.) Even after quitting
Nauvoo during February 1846, the advance group of Mormons continued to
gather information about the west. On January 6, 1847, for example,
Young wrote to a church member in St. Louis: "I want you to bring me one
half dozen of Mitchell's new map of Texas, Oregon & California and
the regions adjoining...for 1846.... If there is anything later or
better than Mitchell's, I want the best." (See Appendix A, Map 4.) [36]

WESTERN TRAVEL ACCOUNTS CONSULTED BY THE
MORMONS

It will be useful at this point to discuss the
accounts, maps, and frontiersmen the Mormons consulted before and during
their great exodus to their New Zion. To do this let us examine the
trans-Missouri travel/guide literature available to Mormon leaders
generally through April 1847, when they left the Missouri River for the
Far West. Probably the Mormons were not even aware of much of the
literature, still less able to consult it, but it will be helpful,
nonetheless, to survey the field.

Travel literature had long been in vogue in the young
Republic. Dozens of guides appeared, beginning with a 1748 guide to
Kentucky, throughout the nineteenth century, to a guide to the Klondike
goldfields in 1897. Perhaps the earliest publication of specific value
to the Mormons would have been Edwin James' 1823 Account of an
Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains 1819-1820, based
on the notes of Major S.H. Long of the famous U.S. Army Corps of
Typographical Engineers. This work detailed Long's 1820 expedition from
a point on the Missouri about 10 miles above what was to become the site
of the Mormon Winter Quarters, westward along a line of march very
similar to that of the Mormons in 1847. That is, along the north bank of
the Platte, across the Elkhorn River and Shell Creek, past the Pawnee
villages, the ford of the Loup River, and continuing west along the
north bank of the Platte to the confluence of the North and South Platte
branches. That is where Long turned southwest into what is now Colorado,
and discovered the peak that bears his name. The forty-two-page account
of this part of Long's expedition would surely have been one of the best
works the Mormons could have consulted, for this was the best exploring
account of the Great Plains before Fremont.

In 1837, the imagination of the nation was caught by
Washington Irving's reworking of the 1833 journal of Captain Benjamin
Louis Eulalie de Bonneville into The Adventures of Captain Bonneville
in the Rocky Mountains and the Far West. The account of the Oregon
Trail between Fort Laramie and the Green River would have been of some
value to the Mormons. Of special interest would have been the five-page
description of the Great Salt Lake provided to Bonneville by one of his
men, Joseph W.R. Walker. Bonneville was also the first to prove the
feasibility of taking loaded wagons over the famed South Pass.

The following year a book appeared of which the
Mormons might have known. This was the Rev. Samuel Parker's Journal
of an Exploring Tour Beyond the Rocky Mountains along the Oregon
Trail from Fort Leavenworth to the Green River via Bellevue (in what is
now Nebraska); that is, across the Papillion, Elkhorn, the Loup, and
along the north side of the Platte to Fort Laramiethe same way the
Mormons later went.

The publications of John K. Townsend, Maximilian,
Prince of Wied, Father Pierre Jean De Smet, and Thomas J. Farnham in the
1830s and 1840s would have been of little value to the Mormons. Of far
greater importance was Captain John C. Fremont's A Report of the
Exploring Expeditions to the Rocky Mountains in the Year 1842.
Published in 1843, this work was probably worth as much to the Mormons
as everything else published to that date combined. This was the Fremont
Report mentioned so often by the Mormons. A 10,000-copy edition
was reprinted in 1845 as the first part of his A Report of the
Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains in the Year 1842 and To
Oregon and North California in the Years 1843-44. The
seventy-nine-page report of 1843 was the first scientific survey
of the Oregon Trail and the first reasonably accurate guidebook to the
Far West.

The 1843 Report was useful to the Mormons for
its account of the Platte River Valley from what is now North Platte,
Nebraska, to South Pass. Of most value to the Mormons in the subsequent
1845 Report was the three-page account of the exploration of the
Great Salt Lake (which he reached via the Soda Springs), the Bear River
area, and the valley of the Great Salt Lake. Of paramount interest to
the Mormons were his comments on the fertility of the valleys west of
the Rocky Mountains.

Next to Fremont the most often-mentioned source of
information to the Mormons was Lansford W. Hastings' The Emigrant's
Guide to Oregon and California, also published in 1845. For all of
the fame or notoriety of this work, it is difficult to see wherein its
value to the Mormons lay. Hastings' short account of his traveling from
St. Louis to the Green River would have been of little help to the
Mormons. He devoted exactly one sentence on pages 137-138 to what became
the famous and infamous Hastings Cutoff, "The most direct route for the
California Emigrants, would be to leave the Oregon route, about two
hundred miles east from Fort Hall; then bearing west-south-west, to the
Salt Lake; and thence continuing down to the bay of San Francisco, by
the route just described." [37] This one
sentence sent some to their deaths, while suggesting to the Mormons a
shorter way to the Valley of the Great Salt Lake, west from Fort
Bridger, rather than via Fort Hall. The Mormons might also have found
Hastings' excellent ten-page chapter on "The Equipment, Supplies, and
the Method of Traveling" very valuable. [38]

WESTERN MAPS CONSULTED BY THE
MORMONS

Of far more importance to the Mormons than the travel
accounts were the maps available to them. There were manya
plethora in fact. [39] Since at least 1722,
dozens of Spanish, French, and American maps had been published showing,
in varying degrees of accuracy and fullness, the Platte River area. Over
fifty maps of the trans-Mississippi west appeared during the first five
years of the 1840s, and in the critical year of 1846 another
twenty-eight were published. [40]

From a practical standpoint, there is no use in this
study to consider anything published prior to Major S.H. Long's map of
1823, which not only gave details along the north side of the Platte
from the Missouri River to the forks of the Platte (see Appendix A, Map
5), but is also generally considered to have been the best map of the
Platte area prior to those prepared by Fremont and his cartographer
Charles Preuss. (See Appendix A, Map 3.)

It appears the Mormons also consulted the 1835 map of
Bonneville. Unfortunately he was an untrained amateur and his map, not
based on astronomical observations, was of poor technical quality. Still
it was widely known and used in its day.

While there were many maps of the trans-Missouri west
published in the 1840s, almost every one the Mormons might have been
interested in were either those of Fremont-Preuss or based on
Fremont-Preuss. The three Fremont-Preuss maps, which appeared in 1843,
1845, and 1846, were what we would call strip maps today, showing only
the area actually explored with no attempt to present wide, general
areas. They represent the best American cartography between Long's work
and the Civil War. [41]

The first of the Fremont-Preuss series, showing the
Oregon Trail in great detail, from the forks of the Platte to South Pass
and the Wind River Mountains, was the basis for the two that followed.
In large format, 14-1/2" by 33-3/4", it was clearly the finest map of
that area ever produced. Preuss prepared another map in 1845 to
accompany Fremont's second Report of that year. As the 1845
publication included the 1843 material, the 1845 map embodied everything
on the 1843 map. In huge format, 51" x 31-1/2", it showed his route
along the Oregon trail from Westport (now part of Kansas City), to South
Pass, Fort Vancouver, and on to San Francisco Bay. This map also
provided a good sketch of the Platte River west from Bellevue, showing
the Elkhorn, Loup, and Wood rivers.

In 1846, Preuss reworked his 1845 map. This map, from
Westport to the Columbia River, was constructed on a grand scale of only
10 miles to the inch and was issued in seven sections, each 26" by
16."

Of those maps derived from Fremont-Preuss, which the
Mormons may have also consulted, are products that appeared with the
1845 Report of Colonel S. Kearny's expedition from Fort
Leavenworth to South Pass; the 1845 Charles Wilkes Map of Oregon
Territory; Rufus B. Sage's 1846 Map of Oregon, California, New Mexico
and Northwest Texas; and above all, one or more of the three maps
published by S. Augustus Mitchell in 1846. It was one or more of these
Mitchell maps that Young ordered from St. Louis during January 1846, as
cited previously. The map in question was undoubtedly the previously
mentioned, "A New Map of Texas, Oregon, and California," which was 20"
by 22" and appeared in four colors. (See Appendix A, Map 4.) It would
seem then that the maps that hung on the walls of the Nauvoo temple and
that were subsequently taken west, besides Fremont's, were surely
Mitchell's, Wilkes', Bonneville's, and most likely Long's. Unfortunately
none of the copies used by the pioneers has survived.

WESTERN TRAVELERS CONSULTED BY THE
MORMONS

It is also interesting to note the contacts the
Mormons might have made while on the Missouri River, from June 1846 to
April 1847, and subsequently along the trail. From the "Manuscript
History of Brigham Young" and other sources, we know they consulted with
frontiersmen, members of the famous Fontenelle family, Indian agents
such as Robert B. Mitchell and Peter A. Sarpy, and Indian chiefs such as
Big Elk and Le Clerk. We also know Young talked with the famous Jesuit
missionary to the Indians, father Pierre Jean De Smet, while the latter
was returning to St. Louis from Oregon. Justin Grosclaude, a fur trader
of Swiss ancestry for the American Fur Company, also called on Young and
sketched with pencil a map of the country west of the Missouri  a
map which, regrettably, has not survived. [42] Not only did the Mormon leaders of the 1840s
seek trail knowledge in the Council Bluffs area, but later on, rank and
file Mormons in many other places along the Missouri River (such as
Independence, Westport, Weston, and St. Joseph, Missouri, and Fort
Leavenworth, Kansas Territory) acquired useful information to help later
emigrants.

On the trail, the Mormons made the best use of every
opportunity to learn from others including traders, guides, and mountain
men such as Moses Harris, Jim Bridger, and Miles Goodyear. [43] Whenever possible, the Mormons updated their
information with the maps, printed accounts, and personal experiences of
the people they met along the way. [44]

MORMONS AND THE ENVIRONMENT

There is no evidence that the Mormons harmed the
environment of the trail. As modern Saints, Mormons tried to be
responsible travelersconsiderate of the land and game. Killing for
sport, for example, was prohibited and they were usually careful in
their consumption of trees for fuel. Perhaps the main reason for the
Mormon concern with the environment is that they knew thousands of their
faith would be using the same trail. The Mormons were interested in the
environment, in the flora and fauna of the increasingly strange world
they encountered while westering. Their journals record their pleasure
with the dramatic landscapes they traversed. Occasionally some pioneers
found time to do some "botanizing" and what we might call "geologizing."
In what is now Nebraska, in 1847, for example, they were fascinated by
mammoth bones. [45]

At times they even ventured to try to describe some
unusual living things. One described something, perhaps a horny toad, as
being "four to five inches long, including a long tail, body short and
chunky, light grey, two rows of dark spots (brown) on each side, head
shaped like a snake, appears perfectly harmless." Another described a
plant as "a thistle, stem four feet long, six inches wide, one quarter
inch thick, ornamented by prickles top to bottom, top is kind of a crown
formed by prickly leaves ten inches long and five inches broad."